CRITICISM OF WILD-EYED NINTH CIRCUIT IS VINDICATED – AT 8:32 A.M. ET:   For years conservatives have been complaining about the antics of the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the most liberal federal appeals circuit in the nation.  Now, an analysis of Supreme Court decisions pretty much proves that the criticisms are correct.  Even Supreme Court liberals are going after the Ninth.  From the Los Angeles Times:

It was another bruising year for the liberal judges of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals as the Supreme Court overturned the majority of their decisions, at times sharply criticizing their legal reasoning.

Appeals from the nine Western states of the circuit dominated the high court's docket, as usual, supplying more than 30% of the 84 cases taken up by the justices during the term that ended last month.

The Supreme Court reversed or vacated 19 of the 26 decisions it looked at from the 9th Circuit this judicial term, issuing especially pointed critiques of the court's handling of cases involving prisoners' rights and death row reprieves.

Although the proportion of reversals was relatively in line with past years and other appellate circuits across the country, the 9th Circuit was often out of step even with the high court's liberal justices, who joined with the conservatives in 12 unanimous rulings.

In their reversals, the justices often expressed impatience with what they see as stubborn refusal by the lower court to follow Supreme Court precedent. One of the circuit's most renowned liberals, Judge Stephen Reinhardt, was seen by judicial analysts as the main target of the justices' pique.

"It just seems that they are getting a bit frustrated with these criminal procedure cases," said Barry McDonald, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University, referring to unanimous reversals of three opinions written by Reinhardt and a decision by another 9th Circuit panel to strike the conviction of a Sacramento rapist who claimed racial bias during jury selection.

In restoring Steven Jackson's conviction for raping a 72-year-old woman, the high court called the 9th Circuit decision written by Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson and joined by two other Democratic appointees "as inexplicable as it is unexplained."

COMMENT:  There's no way to get the lifers of the Ninth off the court, but the Senate should take a special look at any new nominations to that goofy panel.  When you have the Supreme Court's liberals joining in 12 unanimous rulings against the Ninth, the left can no longer claim that right-wing bias is behind criticism of the Ninth's adolescent antics.  I mean, how do you blame Dick Cheney?

But they will.

July 18, 2011